This is the first time I have ever gone to Seneca Rocks and found the Sites Homestead house open.

The home is very (very) slowly being restored, and most of the upstairs is unsafe to walk on, but that didn’t stop me from being fascinated.

It was fascinating.

First thing you notice is that there is only natural light–exactly how it would have been at the time (they most likely would not have wasted candles during the day).

This is the only non-flash picture I took that turned out well.

Pie safe against the wall.

This is where I became really interested. I (of course) looked more closely at the walls, and the scraps and remains left on the walls.

Wallpaper!

Here is the kitchen.

Then I went up stairs and looked closely at the wallpaper up there.

The walls and ceiling had been covered in newspaper and then painted, creating their own wallpaper (I can only imagine what a splurge the actual wallpaper downstairs must have been) that would have helped insulate in the winter, and probably lightened the rooms.

I could have stared for ages and taken as many pictures as I could, but Michael is not nearly as fascinated by these things as I am, so I left after snapping a few pictures. Hopefully it’ll be open again in the future.

Of course being an historical building, they had furniture, and upstairs, small tableaus of how the rooms would have looked. I loved this.